Garance Doré took to her blog today to opine about the difficulties of writing about fashion: "You have no idea how hard it is to write about fashion! It’s hell! Not only are the terms just as seasonal as the clothes we don’t want anymore at the end of the summer, but new trends, materials, and cuts appear every three days and demand their rights: to be named! So you’d better not let an outdated word cross your lips, ok?"
To this end, she cites a list of banned fashion words from her friend's fashion mag, Velour. The fashion no-no list includes: "trendy," "fashionista," "must have," "vintage/retro," "celeb," and "style icon."
We've heard that these banned lists exist in glossies stateside, too.
But we got to thinking about which fashion words we'd like shelve. (We're cool with "fashionista" as long as it refers to us--winkface.)

Garance Doré took to her blog today to opine about the difficulties of writing about fashion: "You have no idea how hard it is to write about fashion! It’s hell! Not only are the terms just as seasonal as the clothes we don’t want anymore at the end of the summer, but new trends, materials, and cuts appear every three days and demand their rights: to be named! So you’d better not let an outdated word cross your lips, ok?"
To this end, she cites a list of banned fashion words from her friend's fashion mag, Velour. The fashion no-no list includes: "trendy," "fashionista," "must have," "vintage/retro," "celeb," and "style icon."
We've heard that these banned lists exist in glossies stateside, too.
But we got to thinking about which fashion words we'd like shelve. (We're cool with "fashionista" as long as it refers to us--winkface.)

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Garance Doré took to her blog today to opine about the difficulties of writing about fashion: "You have no idea how hard it is to write about fashion! It’s hell! Not only are the terms just as seasonal as the clothes we don’t want anymore at the end of the summer, but new trends, materials, and cuts appear every three days and demand their rights: to be named! So you’d better not let an outdated word cross your lips, ok?"

But we got to thinking about which fashion words we'd like shelve. (We're cool with "fashionista" as long as it refers to us--winkface.)
And this is not to say that we are not guilty of over-using fashion clichés and buzz words left and right. In one post I wrote about Julie Haus's resort collection I used the words "feminine," "breezy," "edge," "attention to detail," and "girlier frocks." Cringey.

Lauren is almost moved to violence when she reads the word "edgy" (apparently "edge" didn't get me in too much trouble). Cheryl hates it when people throw the word "couture" around inaccurately and can't abide the "f" trio of "flirty," "flouncy," and "floaty." I can't stand "frock star" and "uber" anything.

Then we conducted a very quick and informal poll of fashion editors and stylists for the fashion words they'd most like to put on moratorium. Let's just say everyone would like to see "fierce" die a swift death. (Tyra, Christian Siriano, we're looking at you.)

Here's the breakdown:

Style expert and celebrity stylist Mary Alice Stephenson's least favorite fashion word is "genius." Her favorite? "Yummy" and, um, "Fagelicious." We'd like to hear more of that on the red carpet please!

TODAY show Style Editor Bobbie Thomas chimed in over twitter that she'd like to add "I die" and "soo cute" to the kill list. Thanks Rachel Zoe.

Hilary Moss, Style Editor at The Huffington Post, says, "I HATE it when people say they have a passion for fashion. Instant gagging-slash-thoughts of Dr. Seuss. I also really, really cannot tolerate the phrase "is the new." It's overused and unimaginative." She hates it this much.

Elle.com's Style News Editor Britt Aboutaleb (and former Fashionista) thinks "CHIC is the WORST word EVER. It needs to die. Seriously." She also "loathes the word fierce," and says, "unless it’s on an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, I hate the world fabulous."

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Jen Mankins, owner of Brooklyn's awesome Bird boutiques has got issues with "onesie." "Just say jumpsuit or even romper, but onesie should be strictly reserved for discussing baby clothes," she says.

Izzy Grinspan, editor of Racked NY has a few good ones: "Well, 'fierce,' of course. And I loathe 'gypset,' as in 'jet-setting gypsy.' Not only is it awkward, but come on -- there is NO SUCH THING as a jet-setting gypsy. Total oxymoron." True story.

We'll end with Piper Weiss, Senior Features Editor at Yahoo's Shine, not to mention the creator of one of our personal faves, My Mom, The Style Icon. Her list? "Savvy, maven, icon, fierce, and clean lines is BS too." She's also got a bone to pick over hearing about how "crazy" fashion week is. "On a scale of 1 to 10 of crazy, I'd put nuclear war slash apocalypse at a 10, a city wide 24 hour blackout or a natural disaster at an 8, maybe even a triple shift at a Starbucks in Grand Central Station at a 4, and fashion week comes in at a 2.5," she says.

As a lovely kick off to fashion week, online editors and bloggers were treated to storytime with Simon Doonan at Barneys' Upper West Side location yesterday morning. The retailer's always-quotable ambassador at large was on hand to read from his latest tome (his seventh), The Asylum, A Collage of Couture Reminiscences… And Hysteria, out this month.
As you can imagine, Doonan, who has been in the industry for some 30-plus years, has many "reminiscences" worth sharing. When I arrived late (I went to the wrong Barneys... shh... ) he was regaling the crowd with a story about Tom Ford giving him a wedgie. And that was only the beginning.

Believe it or not, Fashionista turns five years old this year. Which is, you know, pretty old in blog years. To celebrate our big bday, we’ve asked all of Fashionista’s former editors (in chronological order that’s Faran Krentcil, Natalie Hormilla, Abby Gardner, Britt Aboutaleb, and Lauren Sherman) to reflect back on their time at Fashionista from the highs (seeing a Chanel show) to the lows (being chewed out by Arianne Phillips for leaking her fashion week plans and costing her a client).
You've already heard from Faran, Natalie, Abby, Britt and Lauren, So to wrap up our five year birthday nostalgia series, I figured as Fashionista's current editor, I ought to weigh in.
I've been here almost two years and I won't even attempt to fit the things I've learned and all the stuff I love about this job into a post. It will be TL;DR and no one wants that.